The first thing I remember is the St. Petersburg Police cruiser screaming by us on I-275 South, the officer behind the wheel yelling something we couldn't hear from two closed windows away. We wondered what the hell that was all about, and continued on our way to my then-girlfriend's wonderfully ramshackle two-story house on 14th Street South, three blocks from the corner of 16th Street and 18th Avenue South.
It wasn't until we were nearly home that we realized our neighborhood was in chaos.
Smoke rose from somewhere beyond the tangled knot of police cars, news vans and civilian vehicles that completely shut down 16th Street's main Southside drag. We couldn't see much in detail as we turned off 16th into the 'hood; it was just obvious that something very big and very negative had either just stopped happening or was still going on.
I couldn't say what Natty and I talked about or exactly how many people were milling about on our street. Beyond being acutely aware, in a very post-L.A. riots sort of way, that ours were about the only white faces on the block, everything was, and remains, something of a blur. Pulling into the driveway. Getting information about what had happened from the adult brothers who lived with their mother next door and worked to support her. Getting the rest of the story from the TV. Calling friends to let them know what was happening and hearing variations on the theme of "Get the fuck out of there and come stay here tonight."
Eventually, we found ourselves outside on the next-door brothers' stoop, drinking and watching an endless parade of angry African-American citizens stream by on the sidewalk outside the fence, headed for the epicenter of the action on 18th. A few carried bricks or bats. Once or twice, a few of the marchers noticed Natty and I sitting out there with our neighbors and started into the yard, only to be waved off by our hosts. I think it wasn't until then, sitting there and watching the people of all ages walk by sending off waves of everything from excitement to grim, even suicidal determination, that the potential hugeness of what was happening really started to sink in — that this was about so much more than a neighborhood kid getting shot in a traffic stop gone wrong.
This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2006.
